What the hell do we do now?
Post-2024 Election Thoughts & Updates
Hello! It feels like years have passed since November 5th, 2024. I got a new full-time job after relocating across the country. The news cycle has been bustling with the toppling of the Assad regime in Syria, the sudden declaration of martial law in South Korea, and the murder of the United Healthcare CEO. (Thoughts on the murder and the resultant public response will be coming soon!) Oh, and of course, we can’t go a day without hearing about the next psychopath that Trump has decided to nominate to his Presidential cabinet. Because, yes, we’re here, in this timeline–about to begin Trump Presidency 2.0.
2024 Presidential Election Reflections
First, to no one’s surprise, my Electoral Map predictions were hilariously wrong. But to be fair, I don’t think many people expected that Trump would sweep every. Single. Swing state.
One of the political analysts I follow on YouTube did, however. Her name is Sabrina Salvati, and she covers current events from a leftist perspective. She predicted a full Trump sweep in this video published a few days prior to the election (start watching at 28:23):
I won’t go in-depth here with a 2024 Presidential election autopsy, as there are plenty of high-quality analyses out there. We’ve been inundated.
I will admit that I was disappointed. I really hoped that, despite my many, many political disagreements with her, Harris would win. There are plenty of fights to be had under a hypothetical Harris administration, such as: stopping the Palestinian genocide, fighting for universal healthcare, and increasing the federal minimum wage. However, at least a Harris administration would be staffed by relative experts who wouldn’t be attempting to ban vaccines, eliminate the Department of Education, conduct mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, or place disastrous tariffs that would worsen the economy for many in the short term. The scope of our efforts as leftists have broadened significantly, and that prospect is exhausting.
Many liberals and centrists have been rather angry with leftists like myself who openly criticized the Biden (and later Harris) campaign for being so out of touch with voters. There seemed to be an insistence to keep our criticisms to ourselves until after they had won, or we would be the reason they lost. We can’t be asking for the campaign to commit to universal healthcare! said Democrats. (Which feels particularly ironic after seeing the unanimous public sentiment after the murder of the United Healthcare CEO.) Then we would be accused of being socialists! Forget defending immigrants and perpetuating a positive message about immigrants, WE are tougher on the border! WE like guns!
The most upsetting aspect about all of this is that top Democrats knew they were losing from the start and still continued with a losing strategy. There was internal polling done early on by Democrats that showed that Trump was poised to win 400 votes in the Electoral College, whether Biden or Harris was the Democratic nominee. Biden refused to believe them, and his advisers went along with it. There were plenty of signs that Biden was entering a stage of cognitive decline (see my previous blog post about the cover-up, and why you shouldn’t trust Democrats after that). Before the disastrous summer Presidential debate that exposed the Biden campaign’s lies, we were all told that replacing Biden as the nominee was not only impossible, but unwise, despite a majority of voters asking for a truly competitive primary that would deliver the best nominee.
Even when Harris stepped up, there were many indications that voters were not energized for Harris. Just a few weeks before the election, many voters said they didn’t know what Harris stood for. While there was undeniably misogyny and racism at play, the Harris campaign chose to pander to a moderate voter that doesn’t exist. The Harris campaign courted them alongside never-Trump Republicans, a very small minority of voters overall.
Now I’m going to do the self-aggrandizing thing and quote myself, but I felt like this snippet from my previous blog post about the Democrats was particularly prescient:
“Now, voters are stuck with the nominee of Vice President Kamala Harris and appear to be even less enthusiastic about her match-up with Trump. Many voters feel like the sudden switch was rather undemocratic, and further proof that the Democratic Party does what it wants with impunity, rather than listening to what voters are asking for in the first place. The Democrats are engaging in an incredibly risky strategy that has caused them to lose more and more working-class voters, particularly young men and people of color.”
Huynh-O’Keefe, Valielza. Why You Shouldn't Trust the Democratic Party. Leftist in Progress. 30 Oct 2024. https://leftistinprogress.substack.com/p/why-you-shouldnt-trust-the-democratic
It’s impossible to really know whether a hypothetical Harris campaign that held fast to a leftist program would have won, but I contend that it would have. If people understood that an increased minimum wage was on the table, along with a real affordable housing program and universal healthcare, turnout would not have been so depressed. And while the Palestinian genocide was not the top issue for most voters, it had an undeniable effect on the razor-thin margins of the race. The Green Party captured the most Muslim votes for President across the country, and Trump was second place.
Now, we have to contend with a large population of voters that feels so disaffected from the electoral process that they are willing to vote for the hand grenade that is Trump, or not vote at all. I deeply sympathize with these voters and understand why the Harris campaign didn’t appeal to them. They wanted their votes to mean something instead of perpetuating the status quo. It’s a damn shame that the changes in the status quo are extremely unlikely to be positive, but the incoming malfeasance of the MAGA Republicans, along with the persistent ignorance and betrayals from the Democratic Party, creates a wide opening for leftists and third parties like the Green Party to present an alternative.
So Where Do We Go From Here?
I don’t think our strategy changes much under a Trump 2.0 administration. Funnily enough, Donald Trump, similar to the effect Anita Bryant had for the gay movement in the 1970s, gives the broader American Left (including liberals here) something to focus on. Trump unites us and creates a common cause. While I dread having to resist much of what this administration does, it’s comforting to know that for once, Democrats will be on our side, now that it’s cool to criticize the Republican President. There is strength in numbers.
Personally, I will be focusing on building up my local chapter of the Green Party. I, along with another party member, recently hosted a holiday party for longtime and new San Francisco Greens. We also encouraged people to invite community members and invited some of our endorsed candidates. It was amazing to hear how the Green endorsement was rather significant for many of our endorsed candidates, such as Alan Wong, who will be serving as President of the City College Board in 2025 and beyond. I moderated a Socratic circle where each person was able to discuss their thoughts and feelings about the election in front of the entire group. It was lovely. It re-emphasized that having these political conversations in-person is absolutely crucial to building community.
We heard from a campaign staffer from one of our endorsed candidates for mayor, Dylan Hirsch-Shell. This staffer’s name was Honest (no lie!). He spoke about how crucial it was to organize in between elections. Especially since the Greens have a (somewhat unfair) reputation of showing up every four years to push our candidate for President, this really resonated with me. Plus, there are a whole host of local issues to get involved in that are not necessarily connected to elections.
For example, MUNI, the public transportation agency of San Francisco, is facing a large budget shortfall that would dramatically impact service levels. For anyone who hasn’t been to San Francisco, it’s an incredibly dense city that is very difficult to drive in, but what makes this city amazing is its well-funded public transport. You don’t need a car to live here. SF was built originally around streetcars, and now offers many bus lines, train lines with connectivity to other transit services (BART, CalTrain) that take riders around the Bay Area, and continues to offer historic cable car service.
There was a proposition on the 2024 ballot for San Franciscans called Prop L that proposed a tax on rideshare services such as Lyft, Uber, and Waymo. The tax would be used to bridge the MUNI budget deficit. Lyft and Uber spent millions of dollars in opposition, while the Prop L campaign was mostly grassroots and focused on letting community members know that MUNI is at risk. It received an overwhelmingly positive response and got more than 50% on the ballot, but another proposition unfortunately killed it (Prop M) due to a technicality. It was upsetting to know that Prop L ultimately failed, but the Prop L campaign generated so much momentum and activated many people who were not previously politically active. I would contend that’s a major success. Many of us are continuing to organize at the regional and state levels for MUNI funding.
This is all to say, each one of us should find a single cause we’re passionate about and champion it. As individuals, we cannot organize and devote time and energy to every single issue. That quickly leads to burnout–it’s something I personally experienced after the BLM movement in 2020, thinking I needed to be aware of and involved in every social justice cause. However, as a community, we very much can focus on every issue if each individual has a unique contribution according to their interests.
This is a strategy I am trying to promote in the SF Green Party. As an individual organizer, I am focusing on public transit; there is another organizer who will be focusing on organized labor, and ideally, as we onboard new members, they can champion other causes as well or join existing teams. I’m also hoping to find people who are passionate about free college, universal healthcare, and prison abolition/reform so we can point to meaningful action in all of these policy areas and build trust with voters.
It’s crucial to support local and independent journalism now more than ever, as they will be under attack by the new Trump administration. I’d highly recommend subscribing to your local newspapers. Ask around and see which paper is more liberal, and which is more conservative. Subscribe to both, if possible, in order to get the maximum amount of coverage, and understand how people are thinking and discussing issues across the spectrum. Public libraries also frequently include subscriptions to local newspapers. For example, the San Francisco Public Library has free subscriptions to the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner. Local newspapers are the best way to keep up with local and state level issues, which are significantly easier channels to exercise influence compared to the federal level.
More than anything else, be kind to the people around you. Strive to build community and host in-person events. Get to know people and resist the antisocial impulses encouraged by the digital landscape. Or as the Gen Z folks would say, touch grass. Have conversations with people in the public about the political issue you’re championing whenever possible, and listen. You’ll be surprised by what you learn, surprised by their degree of consideration, or perhaps surprised by their degree of disillusion. Witnessing leftists online convinces me further and further that these people have not been organizing in the real world on a regular basis. You wouldn’t insult someone in a face-to-face conversation for not immediately aligning with you politically or not using the most politically correct terms; each person is an opportunity for a meaningful connection that can result in important action.
I’ve been learning a lot about movement organizing by reading about Ella Baker (see Ella Baker & the Black Freedom Movement by Barbara Ransby, 2003). She’s not spoken about nearly enough in the context of the Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s, but she was one of the core organizers who sometimes disagreed with MLK Jr. and other leaders on their strategies. She insisted that the organizing was too focused on MLK Jr. as an individual (! what a cogent take that foreshadowed what would happen to the movement after his assassination), and detested how women were frequently sidelined in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and not acknowledged for their massive contributions. It’s been so insightful learning about her childhood and how she grew as an organizer. I’ve been finding many answers to modern dilemmas in her biography. (I plan on discussing this book at length in a future post!)
I’ll end this post with some videos that I found incredibly useful, by a leftist YouTuber named Eliot Sang. In this video, he talks about the Ella Baker biography, which is what motivated me to check the book out from the library and read it myself. Sang also puts some concepts from Ella Baker’s organizing into a modern context, discussing online influencers and their reluctance to support Palestine:
If you’re especially bored and interested in a bit of political history, as well as heaps of validation as to why leftists despise Joe Biden, you ought to watch Sang’s video about his political career.
If you have any thoughts, I’d be happy to chat. Leave a comment or send me an e-mail at the Substack’s official e-mail, leftistinprogress [at] proton.me :) I hope everyone is doing well during the holiday season, and I’m incredibly grateful for all your support. I’ve been dreaming about getting this blog off the ground for 3 years now, and it’s incredibly fulfilling and exhilarating to finally do it and grow a readership. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
*PS, if anyone needs access to an article from the Sources/Further Reading list, just let me know and I will send it to you.
Sources | Further Reading
A Surprise Advance to Damascus, Captured on Video. The New York Times. 09 Dec 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/09/world/middleeast/syria-damascus-rebels-assad-video.html?searchResultPosition=3
Tammy Kim, E. A Coup, Almost, in South Korea. The New Yorker. 04 Dec 2024. https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/a-coup-almost-in-south-korea
Wilson, Michael, et al. Manhunt Enters Second Day After Health Executive Is Gunned Down in Manhattan. The New York Times. 04 Dec 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/04/nyregion/unitedhealthcare-ceo-brian-thompson-shooting.html?searchResultPosition=2
Tolentino, Jia. A Man Was Murdered in Cold Blood and You’re Laughing? The New Yorker. 07 Dec 2024. https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/what-the-murder-of-the-unitedhealthcare-ceo-brian-thompson-means-to-america
Gage, Beverly. How Would Kash Patel Compare to J. Edgar Hoover? The New Yorker. 11 Dec 2024. https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/kash-patel-vs-j-edgar-hoover
Thompson, Derek. RFK Jr. Is a Bellwether. The Atlantic. 04 Dec 2024. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/12/rfk-health-regulation-elitism/680863/
The Editors of The Atlantic. What’s Behind Trump’s Controversial Cabinet Picks. The Atlantic. 16 Nov 2024. https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2024/11/trump-cabinet-picks-washington-week/680687/
2024 Presidential Election Reflections
Huynh-O’Keefe, Valielza. 2024 Electoral Map Predictions. Leftist in Progress. 05 Nov 2024. https://leftistinprogress.substack.com/p/2024-electoral-map-predictions-pt
“Final 2024 Polls SHOCK! Electoral Map Prediction!” YouTube, uploaded by Sabby Sabs, 30 October 2024. See link in article.
Vasquez, Tina. Democrats Have Embraced the Terms of the Immigration Debate Set by Extremists. Truthout. 16 Oct 2024. https://truthout.org/articles/democrats-have-embraced-the-terms-of-the-immigration-debate-set-by-extremists/
Lang, Alex. Biden’s polling said Trump would win at least 400 electoral votes before president quit the race, Obama’s aide claims. The Independent. 08 Nov 2024. https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/biden-polling-trump-votes-harris-election-b2644079.html
Huynh-O’Keefe, Valielza. Why You Shouldn't Trust the Democratic Party. Leftist in Progress. 30 Oct 2024. https://leftistinprogress.substack.com/p/why-you-shouldnt-trust-the-democratic
Lee, MJ, et al. Angry and stunned Democrats blame Biden’s closest advisers for shielding public from full extent of president’s decline. CNN. 11 Jul 2024. https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/11/politics/joe-biden-age-decline-democrats-angry/index.html
Preston, Julia. A Kamala Harris Canvasser’s Education. The New Yorker. 30 Nov 2024. https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-weekend-essay/a-kamala-harris-canvassers-education
The Intercept Briefing. Kamala’s Fruitless Pursuit of the Mythical Moderate. The Intercept. 7 Nov 2024. https://theintercept.com/2024/11/07/briefing-podcast-harris-trump-election-results/
Bender, Michael C. Why was there a broad drop-off in Democratic turnout in 2024? The Seattle Times. 11 Nov 2024. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/why-was-there-a-broad-drop-off-in-democratic-turnout-in-2024/
Cohn, Marjorie. Palestine Was a Top Concern for Many Voters. Harris Refused to Listen to Them. Truthout. 07 Nov 2024. https://truthout.org/articles/palestine-was-a-top-concern-for-many-voters-harris-refused-to-listen-to-them/
Harb, Ali. ‘We warned you,’ Arab Americans in Michigan tell Kamala Harris. Al Jazeera. 06 Nov 2024. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/6/we-warned-you-arab-americans-in-michigan-tell-kamala-harris
Allison, Ismail. CAIR Exit Poll of Muslim Voters Reveals Surge in Support for Jill Stein and Donald Trump, Steep Decline for Harris. Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). 08 Nov 2024. https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-exit-poll-of-muslim-voters-reveals-surge-in-support-for-jill-stein-and-donald-trump-steep-decline-for-harris/
So Where Do We Go From Here?
“Coming of Age During the 1970s — Chapter Five: Thank You, Anita.” Making Gay History, 8 Jun 2023. https://makinggayhistory.org/podcast/chapter-five-thank-you-anita/
Alcindor, Yamiche. Liberal Activists Join Forces Against a Common Foe: Trump. The New York Times. 14 Feb 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/protesters-resist-trump.html
Kariisa, Jessica, et al. SF Muni Could Face 'Devastating' Cuts. KQED. 20 Nov 2024. https://www.kqed.org/news/12015011/devastating-cuts-to-muni-could-be-coming
“I Explored San Francisco by Public Transit.” YouTube, uploaded by Adam, 24 November 2024. See link in article.
What's in Proposition L? SFMTA. (n.d.). https://www.sfmta.com/projects/whats-proposition-l
Council, Stephen. San Francisco rejects Muni-funding measure, despite a 56% vote. SFGate. 07 Nov 2024. https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/prop-l-results-muni-funding-19886865.php
“3 Reasons NOT To Care About Local Politics (and why you should anyway).” YouTube, uploaded by Leeja Miller, 09 September 2024. See link in article.
Ransby, Barbara. Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement. Chapel Hill & London, The University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
“Solidarity is supposed to be hard.” YouTube, uploaded by Elliot Sang, 27 September 2024. See link in article.
“Biden.mp4.” YouTube, uploaded by Elliot Sang, 29 November 2024. See link in article.
27DEC24: Updated source that supported the claim that a majority of Muslim Americans nationwide voted for Jill Stein for President in 2024. Initial source from Responsible Statecraft only included exit polling from Michigan. Updated source from Council on American-Islamic Relations reflects nationwide exit polling.